As if it wasn’t enough for me to be reincarnated as a child in the slums, I was taken to a city of crime and became a test subject. But then, when I saw the man that came to destroy the research institute, I realized that this was the world of an angst-filled reverse harem novel.

While living a relatively normal life after escaping from the institute, the heroine of the novel moved in next door. From the looks of it, I might be the heroine’s neighbor extra. Originally, the heroine was to save the unconscious and fatally wounded villain and in return, be subject to a fanatical obsession.

But, why. Why is the sub-villain collapsed in front of my house?

The sub-villain, Lakis Avalon, was the king of the underworld and the very same frightening man that I had met at the institute before.

“…”

I took a moment’s glance around then I kicked the man’s body away.

You’ve got the wrong house, Villain.

Before she became the neighbor of the heroine

I was 10 years old when I first realized my past life. There are some areas where it is unclear to say that I’m 10 years old, but for convenience, I might as well think so. And to explain it, I have to talk first about an event that was a big turning point in my life. That day, I got caught pickpocketing and was being beaten with fire.

Thwack! Bam!

“Did you think today was your big day? How dare you pickpocket me because there’s no one else to rob?”

That day was really an unlucky day. I thought the man with the smell of money was a merchant or tourist who went astray on the road, but I was completely wrong. It’s not like I was an officer of a new criminal organization that just received this area. It was a mistake that I didn’t know that the face was unfamiliar and was the bottom person. Moreover, it was a mistake to think that a man was so stupid and easy. The moment I reached out to the back of the man’s clothes, I was soon ****** to the floor with my hands behind my back.

“I’m felt something dirty touch me!”

“Hey, I don’t have time, just do it in moderation.”

There was a colleague at the side who tried to stop him with a lukewarm attitude, but it didn’t help much.



“No, I’m sorry… Aah!”

The man pushed me into an alley and hurled a random kick at me. There were many abandoned children here in the slums. And there were also adults who gathered the children together and gave them sleeping bags and snacks, which provided food. For a good-looking kid, they occasionally gave away cheap junk food such as candy made with sugar water. I was living there hiding my gender and pretending to be a boy because I didn’t get accepted in the crowd. It was possible because I was still young and had my hair cut thickly and had my face covered with a big stick(?), and my gender was not yet revealed.

Thwack!

“Ptoo(spitting)…! ***** irritates me.”

The man spit sideways as he looked down at me with merciless eyes. I was famous among the children in the crowd, but I was so unlucky that day. I got caught pickpocketing and got beaten up several times when I first started. But this was the first time it was so severe.

The guy next to him clicked his tongue as if he were in a hurry, but that was the end. They left me alone in the alley. I thought it was a good thing that it was over. If it had been worse, I might have died. I got up to go back to the group, but I could only move a few steps and passed out. And when I opened my eyes again, I was being sold to a human trafficking ring.

I was immediately put in the lab. There was a strange smell, and there were depressing cries everywhere.

“It’s similar so far. I don’t think this would work for you anyway?”

The woman there replied sourly to the man’s voice. Then her eyes turned to me hanging from the man’s side.

“But who’s that little kid? Have you been deceived again this time?”

“Who is the messenger?! I picked this young man on purpose.”

It must have hurt his pride to let them know that he was swindled by a slave dealer. The man pretended to be serious as if it was his intention to bring me in.

“Put ‘it’ in his body.”

Only

“Really… Are you serious?”

“I’ve only been trying on an adult body, so I’ll change the method this time.”

The woman seemed reluctant at first, but at the end of the day, at the man’s command, she took me to a bed. My eyes were blurred at that time because I was boiling with a high fever. The sound of two men exchanging talks over me was fading away. So I couldn’t remember what happened to me right after that. But they tied my wrists and ankles to the bed and stabbed me in the neck with a sharp needle. I could feel something penetrating into my neck that I couldn’t identify. After that, I passed out, feeling a terrible pain like my whole body was being smashed. And I dreamed for days of a group of black spiders eating me. Then the pain slowly receded and the reason which had been forgotten, finally came back.

I remembered my previous life’s memories.

Just as water poured out of a broken jar, memories of the past that had been buried suddenly popped up. I am not an orphan of simple blood circulation as it is now, but I remember the sweet days with my family. The daily leisurely life of lying in bed while hugging a dog in my arms and reading a book that I borrowed from my younger brother. After the college exam, I had a chat with my friends until late at night. And then late one night, on my way home, I was pushed by a drunk person and fell to the street. It was a bright and glittering light that swallowed me right up after that. This time, I wandered through countless days in my memory, whether it was a dream or a fantasy.

“It was successful……!”

Then one day, the voice of a man full of joy woke me up.

T/N: hhh if someone more capable were to pick this up then please do ;-; i feel like im destroying the story with my horrible translations.. i might be able to release daily chapters till then.. but it’s not guaranteed

“It succeeded…! The ‘absorption’ was finally a success!”

This was the very same voice I heard right before I fell unconscious after getting injected with something strange.

I pried my still heavy eyelids apart and blinked my unfocused eyes a few times.

My vision was completely white.

At first, I thought I was trapped inside a white room. But soon, I realized that that wasn’t the case. I stared at the entanglement of lines laid out diagonally before my eyes. They were very thin threads.

Dozens, hundreds…no, it was more than that. A countless number of densely woven threads were wrapped around my body like a cocoon.

“This is surprising. I didn’t think it could bear it…”

“Looks like we should have experimented with young organisms sooner…”

“As expected of our Doctor!”

Their research had continued to persist. When I thought about it, I remembered that while I was dreaming, I sometimes felt a writhing pain all over my body. I had lasted longer than they thought, unlike other test subjects that had quickly died once they were injected with the fragment, so they began to bring in young children to experiment on. Even after I woke up, the researchers excitedly focused more on experimenting with children.

However, the final result was that I was the only test subject that had absorbed the fragment’s power and was able to open their eyes, unscathed. The people at the research institute racked their brains, trying to figure out that had gone wrong. And so, they took me and began to carry out all sorts of tests on me.

Another 3 years passed since then. That was how long I was trapped there, undergoing all kinds of experiments.

In that interval, the researchers’ capability came through, and the children who had succeeded in the experiment became four, including me.

The power I absorbed from the fragment had nothing to do with attacking or killing, so even after I obtained power that I didn’t have before, I could not escape from the research institute on my own.

Meanwhile, the doctor’s greed gradually grew, and I had to absorb more grinded fragments time and time again in repeated experiments. Same went for the other children. Still, it was rewarding and the strength in my body grew stronger and stronger, and I was able to use the abilities I gained in finer detail.

Of course, there was also a child that was unable to endure and died.

While I became good at being able to use the fragment’s power to destroy things unlike at first, the researchers also grew secretly vigilant against me and began talking about moving me somewhere to isolate me.

The doctor’s eyes bulged as if he recognized the man.

Seeing that, a smile with a hint of dissatisfaction appeared on the man’s face. The voice that came out of his mouth right after was as sweet as honey, but the contents were vicious.

“I believe I’ve told you not to get that X-like look on your face. It makes me want to bash your face in, but you really don’t listen.”

Everyone around was shaken by this situation but the man was the only one relaxed.

For some reason, the doctor looked horrified and began speaking gibberish.

“Has this change in generations already started? No but still, why are you here…How… Don’t tell me you…?”

The man narrowed his eyes as if the doctor’s response was unbecoming and his mouth distorted in a sneer.

“Looks like you didn’t know what was going on outside while you buried yourself like a maggot in shit?”

There was obvious ridicule on his lips.

“Then again, I don’t think you knew I’d deal with those pests.”

Even the clear arrogance on his beautiful face suited him awfully well.

“Besides that…”

Those beady eyes left the doctor and took a glance around in the next moment.

Only

“What is this now? Did you maggots hatch eggs in the meantime?”

His sharp gaze swept over the test subjects in the room and he soon asked with cold touch on his lips.

“Why the stack of so many brats? It’s nauseating.”

I didn’t notice it before, but the man seemed in a very ferocious mood.

Finally, he stated.

“From today day henceforth, this lab is closed.”

Translator’s Corner:

*I’ve been asked about the update schedule for this novel and currently? I don’t have any. You can expect at least one per week but I don’t want to promise anything. Although, I would love to get to chapter 20 before this month is over, I can only get one chapter free per day(Kakao page rules). The novel I was translating is slowly coming to an end so I’m starting on this one. Once [Lucia] is over, I can promise a consistent schedule.